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A Quick Thought On The "Batman" Shooting

This won't take long, because just the fact that it has to be said (again) disgusts me.

Imagine you're walking down the street and you're starving. You see a big huge ad for McDonald's. You suddenly get a huge craving for McDonald's, and if it is within your means you promptly go get a burger. Now imagine you're full, or you're not really hungry at all, and you see the same ad for McDonald's. Chances are you won't be driven to buy a burger because, what the hell, I'm not hungry and food ads appeal to hunger; they don't cause it.

This is a parable. Hang on.

Surely by now you've heard of the shooting that took place in Aurora, Colorado during the midnight screening of arguably the biggest movie release this year: "The Dark Knight Rises", the third and final part of Nolan's critically acclaimed and very successful reimagining of the very badass Batman character. You don't need a whole lot of information to appreciate the caliber of this tragedy. A dozen innocent movie goers were murdered and many, many more still remain injured, some critically so.

The thing is: this isn't a localized tragedy. Even if you're not from Colorado, or even the U.S., you need to understand that this isn't just another mass murder, but one that can easily and most certainly will be turned into a media shitstorm. This will be politicized immediately, and once more millions of people will begin to wonder who's to blame for the tragedy.

Spoiler warning: it's that cocksucker known as James Holmes.

Not his parents. Not his friends. Not the political party to which he subscribes. Not his religion. Not the bands he listens to, and certainly not the movie he chose to turn into a bloodbath. Why Batman? Chances are that the fact that the movie playing was "The Dark Knight Rises" is entirely incidental. After all, it's a gigantic premiere that would draw the numbers this worm wanted in his sight.

But hell, even if he had the balls to say something like "I totally identified with Heath Ledger's Joker!" the fact of the matter would remain: this guy is a killer, and he was a killer before Nolan began scripting his Batman films. Here's when the McDonald's parable becomes relevant. This guy was hungry; the ad he was subjected to is irrelevant.

Movies, music and video games don't create killers. It's still difficult to define exactly what it is that sources this sort of evil, but it's not the media; the evil is something far more fundamental. I personally love video games and I listen to metal almost exclusively, so this is a topic that strikes a nerve with me in particular, and a debate I've been part of too many times.

It's a shame that this movie, like its predecessor, will be forever tainted with the loss of a life. Or lives, in this case, and it's much more tragic. It's a shame that something like film, a beautiful and pure form of escapism for anyone, can be ruined in such a way. I can only hope the collateral damage of this disgraceful moment for humanity won't further affect the movie-going experience (this is an exaggeration, but wouldn't it be just fun to need a security check every time we enter a movie theater?).

We need to realize that we don't need to point fingers and find someone to blame besides the subject of this violence. He needs to be put away (and, in my opinion, put down altogether; human rights don't apply to deranged inhuman scum), and we need to respect the memory of the innocents who died a needless, stupid death. May they rest in peace; thoughts with their friends and family.